Operations
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Most companies in the fashion industry are firmly entrenched in a business model that involves outsourcing production and distributing products through cheaper, "slow boat" channels. Research at Stanford Graduate School of Business, however, suggests that...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—We live in an extraordinary time. The Internet and related technologies have opened new forms of communication, reduced the costs of many kinds of market interactions, and brought firms and consumers around the globe into closer proximity than ever before. At...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—It's a simple fact of human nature: The minute people fear they may not be able to get their "stuff," they start hoarding whatever's available. On the industry level, notes Stanford professor Hau Lee, a similar dynamic can occur throughout a supply chain. The...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—"The Minority Report," Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie release in 2002 has the following scene. John Anderton (Tom Cruise), after having eyeballs replaced to escape police detection, walks into an apparel store (the Gap). The camera in the store scans his eyes...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Supply chains—the string of players involved in making goods from the procurement of raw materials to the consumer end product—have traditionally operated with gross inefficiencies resulting from what they don’t know. How can the producer of a computer chip...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Open source software — where the source code for programs, such as the Linux kernel and popular applications provided by Red Hat and similar software companies is freely available — has become a major and fast-growing presence in recent years. New research...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—In the business world, women who are aggressive, assertive, and confident but who can turn these traits on and off, depending on the social circumstances, get more promotions than either men or other women, according to a recent study coming out of the...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—The single biggest factor contributing to the astronomically rising cost of healthcare is the emergence of expensive new technology. Science is finding more effective ways of treating diseases and extending life, but at a substantial cost. How much are we—and...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—Medical Technologies with high "social value" — those that have the potential to reduce costs, improve health care, and improve access to care — can play an important role in helping safety-net providers use their resources more efficiently to better serve...
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—Back in the 1970s, corporations competed on quality. In the eighties, the quality effort gave way to the quest for lean manufacturing. In the nineties and beyond, business is increasingly global, product variety is growing, and production cycles continue to...